A rivet nut is a blind nut comprising a flange and internally threaded body. Rivet nuts are installed by inserting them into a pre-drilled hole. The nut is then deformed by compressing it until the rivet nut is held tight in the hole and will not turn.
Rivet nuts may be installed using a hand tool.
Most hand tools currently being manufactured and sold throughout the world use a linear action to compress the rivet nut. Tools take the form of either a hand plier, where two handles are gripped and pulled together to directly compress the rivet nut, or a lever tool, where two handles are pulled together and the rivet nut is compressed using an action similar to that of a set of garden shears.
Both types of tool have many disadvantages in terms of quality, reliability, difficulty of access, the need to accurately set the stroke (or movement) of the tool to obtain the correct installation of the rivet nut, difficulty of use, and the requirement for two hands and a lot of strength to operate the tool.
A small number of hand tools use a rotary action to compress the rivet nut. These have the advantage that they require less force to be operated than the tools which use a linear action. However, the known tools are complicated and therefore expensive to manufacture.